by Shannon Dittemore | Dec 9, 2020 | Author Life, Getting Published, Writing
When you decide to pursue storytelling as a career, one of the very first things you learn is just how long everything takes. For a writer who has decided to pursue publication with a traditional publisher, the waits can be excruciating. And there are many of them. To...
by Jill Williamson | Nov 18, 2020 | Author Life, Discovery Writing, Encouragement, First Drafts, Learning from Other Authors, NaNoWriMo, Story Beginnings, Writing
(First, did you see I posted a giveaway blog post on Monday? If you missed it, go and enter!) Now… anyone doing National Novel Writing Month this year? I was. My goal was not so much to win (reach 50,000 words) as it was to write something totally fun—just for...
by Jill Williamson | Nov 16, 2020 | Writing
It’s just a little over two weeks until the release of our new book, Go Teen Writers: Write Your Novel, and we are ridiculously excited! In fact, we decided to do a giveaway of a paperback copy of the book. No, we don’t have our author copies yet, but by...
by Shannon Dittemore | Oct 14, 2020 | Author Life, Live Events, Writing, Writing Life
UPDATE! Registration for this event is now closed! Thank you all so much. We’ll see you tonight. My fourth published novel, WINTER, WHITE AND WICKED, released this week, friends! It’s been seven years since my last book hit shelves, so this is an occasion...
by Jill Williamson | Sep 30, 2020 | Characters, First Drafts, Writing
Have you ever noticed how there are many side characters who are cooler than the hero? I don’t know why this is. Perhaps it’s because the hero is meant to portray the “everyday man,” and we’re all flawed. Let me give you some examples....
by Jill Williamson | Sep 23, 2020 | Brainstorming, First Drafts, Scenes and Scene Structure, Story Structure, Writing
An outline is a general plan. For a novel, that can be as simple or as in-depth as you want. Some writers outline every single scene of their novel before they write. Some only outline a little bit. Some write a synopsis as an overview of the story they’re planning to...
